SSX

2012 snowboarding reboot SSX is now playable on Xbox One thanks to the console's backwards compatibility service.

December's batch of PlayStation Plus games have been announced. PlayStation 4 gets Gauntlet: Slayer Edition and King's Quest - Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember.

Xbox Live Gold subscribers will get The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings for free in January as part of Microsoft's Games with Gold promotion.

Microsoft has revealed its Games With Gold offerings for December, in which Xbox Live Gold subscribers get free games for a month.

During all of December, Xbox One Gold subscribers will be able to download Worms Battlegrounds.

Likewise, Xbox 360 users can snag point-and-click 60s caper The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief from 1st December until the 15th. Beginning on 16th December, it will be replaced with SSX through the end of the month.

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SSX's new simultaneous multiplayer mode has just gone live in a new patch.

Sony confirmed its release in a post on the official EU PlayStation forum.

The previously-teased multiplayer option is titled 3-2-1-GO!. Yes, really. It allows for up to five players to ride simultaneously in Trick It and Race It heats.

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A new simultaneous multiplayer mode for SSX has been teased by EA.

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Two new packs due out next week.

SSX players will be able to download an array of new content in the Mt. Eddie and Classic Characters packs, both available on 1st May, EA has announced.

That date is a Tuesday, which fits the pattern of when Xbox Marketplace updates its DLC selection. But UK PS3 owners may have to wait until Wednesday, when the PSN Store updates here.

You can get both DLC drops bundled together for $8 (about £5), or separately for $6 each (about £3.70). Exact UK pricing has yet to be confirmed.

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Hello! Someone's smacked the industry with a stick and a bevvy of games have come flooding forth. There's a third game in a series that's actually the fifth, a fourth that's really the sixth and one that pretends that it's not a sequel at all (it's in fact the fifth). Games!

EA snowboarding reboot SSX has claimed first place in the UK all-formats chart.

I've just arrived in San Francisco for the 2012 Game Developers Conference. GDC is E3's alter ego, the games industry's other face; looking inward rather than outward, this show is about what people are saying rather than what they're selling.

On a zipline.

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Xbox 360

PlayStation 3

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Blizzard entertainment.

SSX's lead characters are absent from the first 15 minutes of the game. You meet them soon enough - resolute, ancient, snow-capped behemoths plucked from the Rockies, Alps and Himalayas, drawn up through a NASA satellite and digitally deposited into the game - but before you can walk them, you must first learn how to fly above them.

Dropped from a helicopter at 30,000 feet, the opening minutes of SSX give everybody the chance to experience the game's true quest object: flow. Freefalling through the sky with no trees to slam against, no rails to miss, no snow tundra to upset the carve of your combo, you are free to chain trick after trick and watch the score counter climb to the stratosphere. 20 hours later and there's a chance you'll be able to link trick to tweaked trick with this kind of uninterrupted elegance, but for now you can wax lyrical with your thumbs without fear of stutter.

Then, when you've mastered the basic vocabulary, it's time to meet the opponent against whom you're going to pit it. A squeeze of the right bumper and you open a wing suit, gliding to the ground where miles of snow dip and rise. Rock protrusions provide rails, and ice sheets scream you into tunnels that burrow through the earth before spitting you out into twirling drops.

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On top of Mont Blanc, at -30C.

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All downhill from here.

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A demo for EA's SSX reboot lands on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade next week, the publisher has confirmed.

Skating on the south side.

There are 36 pieces of music on the SSX soundtrack, and EA has named them.

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Brrrilliant new gameplay.

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Forthcoming snowboarding revival SSX ships with an online pass, publisher EA has confirmed.

As detailed by GameInformer, all players will be able to access the game's Explore and Global Events multiplayer modes, however, any in-game credits earned will be withheld until an online pass code is activated.

That code is included in new copies of the game, but those picking the game up second hand will have to fork over $10 for a digital voucher.

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"These are the mind-temples we search for."

Blizzard entertainment.

EA's deadly descents coming 2nd March in UK.

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EA's snowboarding reboot SSX has been pushed back two weeks until 2nd March, the publisher has announced.

Todd Batty, the game's creative director, posted an open letter on the game's official site explaining that the development team needed a little more time to ensure the finished game is up to scratch.

"We recently decided to take a couple of extra weeks to give our game the final bit of polish we think it deserves," he wrote.

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Board game.

EA has announced a new custom soundtrack system that will debut in snowboarding revival SSX early next year.

As reported by Destructoid, the tech, known as Harmony, allows you to import your own playlists, which the game will then dynamically mix into the action in real time.

The example given is when your rider soars off a ramp and the music drops out, leaving just the noise of wind whistling past your ears.

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Night-time races and hazards shown off.

A dusting of fresh images.

As far as a lot of video games are concerned, snowboarding might as well be a made-up sport, really. You know, like Quidditch, or Welters. Or Badminton.

That arcadey downhill racer you play on the living room flatscreen has lofted itself so far from reality by this point that it can now be a little crushing to encounter the genuine thing on TV. Where are the particle effects, the afterglow, and the combo numbers? Why can't Shaun White really thrust himself so high into the sky with each jump that he comes back to earth having wrapped his face around important elements of the Hubble Space Telescope? I suspect a big part of the reason that people were so upset about the new SSX's first reveal trailer wasn't so much because the Deadly Descent angle looked terrible, but because it seemed kind of, well, realistic. Who wants that?

Happily, having played a few of the Deadly Descents last week, it turns out that they're not realistic at all. They're over-the-top, and almost cartoonishly inventive. There are particle effects, afterglow, and combo numbers. You know, like classic SSX. Or Badminton.

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EA's revival of its dormant SSX franchise launches in the US for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 14th February, the publisher has announced.

A listing on the EA Sports website doesn't mention a UK date, but convention suggests a 17th February release is likely on these shores.

Eurogamer's Oli Welsh came away impressed when he checked out the game at E3 this year.

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EA shows its mountains of madness.

An avalanche of four-player action.

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On board for January 2012.

Series veteran gets new look.

What's in a name? Enough for EA to drop it. The first proper SSX snowboarding game since 2005's On Tour and the first on PS3 and 360 was originally announced late last year as SSX: Deadly Descents.

As part of its ongoing E3 press conference, Sony has announced a range of PS3-exclusive bonuses for upcoming EA titles.

The PS3 version of Battlefield 3 will be "bigger than any other," said Sony US boss Jack Tretton. He revealed that the additional storage of Blu-ray meant EA would bundle a free copy of Battlefield 1943 with the game when it ships in October.

"It's one of the most exciting games of the year bundled free with one of the most popular PSN games," Tretton added.

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SSX takes to the slopes in January 2012 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, EA has announced.

Taking to the stage during its E3 conference today, EA Sports boss Peter Moore promised that the finished game will pack in a "ridiculous amount of content."

There are three gameplay modes included – Race It, Trick It and Survive It - playable, according to Moore, over every mountain range in the world.

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Classic character back on his board.

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Locations! Jumps! In-game alpha footage!

Ice to see you.

SSX, the next entry in EA's long-running snowboarding franchise, is aiming for a January 2012 release.

Creative director Todd Batty broke the news to Joystiq during a showcase in San Francisco yesterday.

Due on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it's the first game in the series since middling 2007 Wii outing SSX: Blur.

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Grab your flake jacket.

EA has toned down the gritty appearance of new SSX game Deadly Descents by dropping the subtitle.

Grittier image being downplayed.

EA Canada on renewing the franchise.

EA gives gamers the cold shoulder.

Gritty SSX reboot Deadly Descents features a rewind button to undo momentary bad boarding.

You can hurtle down and test that on more than 70 mountains spanning 17 regions, including famous peaks in The Alps, Himalayas, Kilimanjaro, Siberia and Caucasus. That's according to an EGM preview of the new game (read by NeoGAF, via VG247).

Mountains are made auto-magically by the sophisticated Deadly Descents engine, which even pulls data for use from Google Earth - oh no it's alive, run! On each of these huge, snow-covered rocks you'll encounter a specific danger. Mentioned are thin air, ice and temperature - all three of which we'd consider common to most high-top pistes.

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UPDATE: EA has just confirmed to Eurogamer that SSX: Deadly Descents will be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 only.

ORIGINAL STORY: SSX: Deadly Descents uses real world landscapes for mountain ranges – a world first for a snowboarding videogame.

The game's official Facebook page reveals more.

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Speculation is rampant that a new game in the SSX series is in the works after internet sleuths spotted EA- registered domains relating to the arcade snowboarding franchise.

EA Montreal trouser-wearer Alain Tascan has admitted there is a lot of love for the SSX snowboarding series at the studio, and said that a revival may be on the cards - particularly if the market (that's you) demands it.